


Begging for Footnotes

by call_for_help



Series: if our love died young, i can't bear witness [1]
Category: Longmire (TV)
Genre: Angst, Episode: s06e10 Goodbye Is Always Implied, F/M, Fix-It of Sorts, I'm Sorry, and the canon scene hurts a lot, but even messed up canon Jady deserves a proper ending, sometimes goodbye is not implied, sometimes you have to say it, this hurts more than the canon scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-17 12:33:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28725150
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/call_for_help/pseuds/call_for_help
Summary: Rejected by the Cheyenne community and set on leaving Wyoming once and for all, Cady has one last thing to do. Resign.
Relationships: Cady Longmire/Jacob Nighthorse
Series: if our love died young, i can't bear witness [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2105811
Comments: 9
Kudos: 8





	Begging for Footnotes

**Author's Note:**

> For my purposes, the scene with Henry where Jacob tries to sell him on the good aspects of the casino (“I need somebody in my corner”) happened, but the walkout and Jacob’s kidnapping have not happened (yet).

Cady takes the stairs from the back entrance and feels distinctly like a fox sneaking up on its prey, or more accurately, a hunter, compelled more by choice than instinct, though it’s a choice she never expected to have to make. Now that it has all but been made for her, she is left to carry it out, like dancing inevitably and irresistibly toward the gallows.

It should be freeing, finally having a wide open future of possibilities. But this chapter isn’t closing in a satisfying way. It promises to be examined, picked over, dog-eared and tear-stained in the coming years as guilt gnaws at her, stemming from the moment she can never take back. If she could, she’d rip all the pages out without a second thought, burn them even, not trusting herself to avoid making the same mistake given the chance. It would be better that way. 

Instead she treads solemnly to the third floor landing, hoping against hope that Jacob won’t be there, that she can truly embody the thieving, red-haired animal and complete her task undetected. 

She emerges from the seldom-used stairwell and feels exposed, though less exposed than walking through the main casino floor. It’s only the second time she’s come this way; Jacob gave her a key card that accesses the staff-only entrance the same day he… She doesn’t want to think about it.

The door is open and her stomach drops. Her grip tightens and the steel saps the warmth from her hand as she walks through the door, rapping it a couple times on her way in.

“Henry?” calls Jacob from behind the monitor on his desk.

“No, um…” is all she gets out before he’s standing up and she watches his reaction as he looks her over, not quite able to tell if his eyes pause on the rifle in one hand or the envelope in the other. He lifts them back to hers and suddenly her skin is burning and she’s regretting every second she let herself forget just enough to be happy with Zach.

“What’re you doing here?” he asks, though he must have a fairly good idea.

“I just wanted to bring this”—she holds up the rifle—“back… And make it official.” She can barely get the words out with the way he’s staring at her but she has to and she has to approach the desk to set the letter on it. He’s holding out his hand before she gets there and she reluctantly surrenders it.

Of course he opens it and she looks away sighing, seeing the words in her mind, remembering all of them as well as she remembers the tea that went cold while she wrote them.

He lets the letter fall unceremoniously to the desk. “So that’s it.”

“Like I said—” He holds up his hand to cut her off before turning it over, asking for the rifle. She passes it over with both hands. As he takes hold of the space between them, she is struck by the contrast to the reverence he seemed to handle it with all those months ago. If it still means the same thing to him now, she can more than understand the change, but if, as she suspects, it took on an even greater meaning somewhere along the way, well, she could sympathize with having his broken heart handed to him by the one who broke it. God knows she’s felt that sting more than once recently.

He runs a couple fingers underneath the feather that still hangs from the barrel. “That was Henry’s addition, right?” 

“Yeah.”

“I’m sure you’ll want that back,” he deadpans before snapping the feeble string holding it in place.

“I—I really don’t. I don’t deserve it. I’m not a warrior and I’m certainly not Cheyenne, if I ever was…” It was sad to think how quickly she had gone from adopted to exiled, ally to enemy. And there was no way of going back.

She wants to leave. He has her letter, he knows what it means. Yet somehow, they haven’t reached the end of the page. She owes him, and herself, that at least.

His features finally soften noticeably and his voice loses a touch of its edge as he says, “I think you are a warrior. You were called to be a traitor to your… upbringing, and you couldn’t quite switch sides.”

“Not quickly enough, anyways.” She gives him the trace of a smile that falls almost immediately as the memories flood her brain. “I wish you’d never trusted me. You were right, people on the Rez, they see the world differently from me and I will never fully understand what that’s like. I tried, I tried so hard, I pulled all-nighters reading files, I was getting to know everyone and their cousin, literally, working with Mathias, Henry, Mandy. It still wasn’t enough. I fucked it up.” She looks into his eyes with somber regret. “All of it.”

She can’t say it out loud, even now, _especially_ now, when it doesn’t matter and never will. But he knows. He has to know. They’d gotten too good at talking without speaking for him not to know.

He takes a contemplative breath and lets his fingertips drag on the desktop as he steps slowly around, mirroring himself from who knows how long ago, in what she had long since realized was meant to be a gesture of openness, of offering himself as someone she could trust. Trust to know better than her about Rez matters, but also someone she could trust to offer gentle criticism of her less brilliant ideas.

He settles against the front of the desk, slipping his hands in his pockets. He looks… older somehow.

His eyes are on the ground as he starts speaking, slow and deliberate, “Nobody knows the threats the world holds for them. You can’t know.”

She practically chokes as tears rush to her eyes. Of all the significant moments they’re inadvertently reliving, he has to bring _that_ into it. His pause stretches and she can’t help filling in the gap with her memory, one that has haunted her many more times than it thrilled her, back when she was someone he trusted, not someone who betrayed him.

He finally looks back up and doesn’t even flinch at the tears streaming down her face and the bright pink her cheeks must be. His lips twist ever so briefly into a regretful smile. “I never thought it would be you.”

She… needs to sit down. Her hand comes up to cover her mouth and she struggles to maintain the little composure she has left. “Me either,” she whispers, not looking at him.

They sit in silence a few moments before she dares to look up and he’s just staring at her contemplatively.

Something clicks into place, like the final period of an epilogue, and she stands suddenly, and tucks her hair behind her ears. “I, I should go.”

He straightens, then sags back into place looking positively exhausted. “You probably should.”

“Goodbye Jacob, I doubt we’ll see each other again.” He read the letter. He knows she won’t be sticking around long enough for that to be a real possibility.

“Goodbye Cady.”

She drags herself toward the door, and the rustle of rapidly turning pages fills her mind. She forces herself not to look back. Reaching the door, she pulls it closed and breathes a sigh of grim relief before heading for the elevator.


End file.
